A Softly Burning Sun
by c1araoswa1d
Summary: Tumblr Whouffle Prompt: Clara remembers her life in Victorian London and asks the Doctor why he entrusted her with the Tardis's key so quickly. (Oh and maybe she can remember that little kiss of theirs).


It's only a moment after he's landed that Clara's opening the front doors, shutting them behind her with a soft hum and making her way towards the console with a simple, "Good morning, Doctor, where are we of to today?"

He grins in her direction and opens his mouth to speak, but he sees her fumbling with the key in her hand, staring at it with a sudden thought and he asks, "Did it get stuck again? Sometimes, old keys, need a bit of cleaning…"

But Clara shakes her head and smiles up at him, a curious lowering of her eyebrows as she explains, "No, I just…" she chuckles, "I just remembered something."

She steps to the console with another look up at him, one that gives away she's thinking about him – something he's done having to do with that very key – and he finds himself nervously shifting his weight from side to side, almost waiting before asking, "What is it you've remembered?"

Her smile is instant and he looks to the ground because his cheeks have gone red, as though he might already know. Clara watches him toggle the switches in front of him and hears the engines whine underneath them as they float back into the Vortex. He's more comfortable there than settled on Earth, she knows, and she glances back at the door and the step there.

"_Will you come away with me_?"

She can hear his voice, the quiet way he'd spoken, as if he'd just said the words and if she closes her eyes for even a second, she could see the way he'd looked at her then. Looked at her as if she were a bursting star. A beautiful sight he was amazed to be seeing. A hint of excitement that he might get to keep her just a bit longer.

Clara had tried so hard to memorize him in that moment, so very long ago, but her memories of those echoes were scattered in her mind, popping up at random and drifting away just as easily. The Doctor could usually tell, they came with a recognition of something she ought not recognize, and then her eyes would glaze over slightly, as though lost to a dream. With a shake of her head it was usually gone, safely tucked back into the back of her mind to keep her safe.

But this one held strong.

He watches the way her lips curved upwards as she looks him over. Those large roaming eyes surveying his face the way she's done a thousand times. It shouldn't unnerve him the way it does, as if she could see beneath the surface of his skin and delve directly into his thoughts – because he knows very well she can't. Now she takes a breath, as though she might have uncovered some secret, and bends forward.

"The day after we met," she closes her eyes and offers a soft laugh before correcting, "The night the snowmen attacked, Victorian London, you brought me into the Tardis and you handed me this key." She watches him, the way his lips work against one another nervously. "It took you weeks to give me a key – why did you offer it so quickly then?"

He merely shrugs, avoiding her eyes. Because there was that small part of him that thought maybe she _could_ see into him. Clara Oswald could slip past the front cover of his book and skim his pages as easily as one would a novel in a coffee shop, and she'd do it with a warm raspberry tea held firm in one hand, his hearts juggled neatly in the other.

"Doctor," she prompts, watching his eyes come up darkly before he lets his fingers slip off the controls so he can turn to face her, and yet, his head turns back towards the console, evading her stare. "Is it because I kissed you?" She teases.

Head snapping up, the Doctor barks quickly, "No, of course that wasn't the reason! Do I look like some sort of…" his head shakes from the effort of considering the right word before he finally spits, "I don't choose my companions by how quickly they decide to kiss me; I offered you the Tardis key because you were good – incredibly clever, and kind, and…"

"_A little bit because I kissed you_," Clara whispers.

He blushes, a ghost of the way their lips had smashed together tingling his lips, and she smiles because she knows he's thinking about it. The Doctor is thinking about how tightly her hands had held onto his lapels and how horribly he'd reacted, flapping and waving like an uncoordinated idiot while trying to convince himself he hadn't enjoyed it.

It wasn't that he hadn't, it was that he _had_ – or at least he'd wanted to let himself, except he was too confused by the chaos of emotions he'd been experiencing. Her eager lips had met too many years locked away in the dark, like awakening the pins and needles in a numbed limb.

Glaring at her, he told her honestly, "I gave you the Tardis key that night because you were unlike any other potential companion I'd ever met – I gave you the Tardis key that night because I was absolutely certain it was _you_ I needed aboard the Tardis."

"I never know why; I only know _who_," she breathes lightly, small grin perking up her lips as she looks up to the Doctor.

She watches him wince just before he raises his eyes to look at her and she sees the worry there, the vulnerability – a side of him he generally leaves hiding behind his fake set of armor, one she took pleasure in poking holes in. And then she remembers the rest. The way her heart had started to pound in her chest, not because of his words, but because of the sentiment behind them. Because she'd run into a broken man hiding in a box in the clouds and somehow she'd coaxed him down and convinced him to save the world.

And he'd asked to keep her.

"Why did you come down for me?" Clara asks him quietly, taking a small step towards him as he leans closer to the console to examine a spot of dust on a circular panel, swiping at it with his fingers and shooting quick looks at her. "You were up there a hundred years."

"Like you just said," he sighs with a nod, "I don't know _why_, I only know _who_."

She smiles, another step closer, "But you _do_ know why. It's illogical to not have _some_ reasons…"

"It's a feeling," he argues, right hand rising slightly and dropping away to grip the console.

"So, it _was_ the kiss," Clara shoots with a grin, glancing down to watch the squirm that begins in his legs and works its way up through his body.

Clara expects a witty retort, but instead she gets a sigh. A sigh that sounds like it's been held in for a lifetime and when she looks up, she sees a sort of defeat in his eyes, one that instantly straightens her head and wipes the smile off her face. Because he looks like he's going to tell her the truth; because he looks like he's going to tell her something he's never told anyone.

The _reason_ behind his _choice_.

"What?" Clara asks him quickly, another step forward, inches from him as she watches the way his shoulders relax as he takes her in, considering his words as she exhales, "What is it, Doctor?"

"You made me _feel_," he admits. "A hundred years in a box in the clouds mourning the loss of my friends, _my family_, had made me anesthetized to the world beneath me – a world I had forgotten I was a part of; a world I didn't want to be a part of anymore because that world came with _too many_ _abrupt endings_." The Doctor touches her cheek a moment and then pulls his hand away and sighs again, another long sigh that warms her chin as he drops his head slightly on a nod. "You, with your _stubbornness_ and your _confidence_…" he smiles, "And your _kiss_."

She watches him turn away from her, slowly rounding the console as he occasionally reaches up for one of the controls, slipping them through time with a magical look in his eye as he glances at her across the greenly lit tubing at the center. Clara waits, smirking, and she turns when he comes to stand at her other side now, his palms resting on the metal in front of him before he shifts to face her and she continues to wait, knowing by the way he's mulling over his thoughts that he has more to say – more he isn't sure he should.

"Giving me the key," Clara prompts, "You said it was you… _giving in_."

He nods, then closes his eyes tightly, beginning, "Have you ever been in a dark room, any dark place really, and just as you've grown accustomed to the lack of light, you step outside into the sun?" His eyes open as he looks to her curiously, "It's inevitable, an adjustment period. Your eyes burn at first, the sudden influx of light into pupils dilated to accommodate the darkness, but once you've settled – not returning to the darkness, but _giving in to_ _that light_ and allowing yourself immersion in it – what you're left with is simply…" he smiles to her, "_Soothing warmth_." The Doctor shifts back to the controls as she watches him, and he continues softly, "It wasn't a kiss, or any word, or any gesture that got you that key – it was given with the gratitude of being reminded that there was a world worth fighting for, that despite the horrors held within it… _there was warmth_. There was hope and there were people willing to find it even in the darkest of rooms."

Clara raises a hand to flip a lever when he points, and she turns to look over the controls while inching closer to him to bump his hip lightly with her own, small grin ready for him when he glances down. She thought about all of her echoes out in the universe and how each one acted as a beacon for him through all of his life. Smiling to herself, Clara leans into him, one arm coming up to wrap around his back, the other tightly across his stomach, grateful that somehow, one of those beacons had lead him out of the darkest of nights.

"What's this?" The Doctor asks quietly, a laugh floating within his words.

Releasing a small breath into his chest, Clara looks up to admit, "You weren't the only one in the dark." With a shrug of her shoulders against his body, she repeats from earlier, "Where are we off to today?"

He twirls a dial in front of him and the Tardis gives a shake as they laugh in unison, looking up at the console in front of them as it churns. The Doctor glances down at his companion – at _his_ Clara – and he feels it all over, the way it happens every time he takes her in. With a chuckle, he tells her calmly, "Someplace warm," as he raises his right arm to drop over her shoulder, pulling her closer to him, and reveling in exactly _who_ she was.


End file.
